I have an issue with the way Band in a Box treats time signatures, partially when trying to create songs in 6/8, 12/8 or 2/2. Any time I try to write a song using the 6/8 styles provided, they end up being treat as if they where 4/4 styles, the same goes with 12/8 styles. Now, as far as 2/2 or cut time goes, and I know I'm beating the ol' horse to death, there is no recognition for that at all. For me, being able to write a song in cut it is a must for me. I have a ton of songs I would like to create but because they are in 2/2, I can't write them. No, I don't want a Ev16 or Sw16, or a fast 4/4, I want cut time. Please get this fixed soon. I really enjoy your product and I really love the ability to even request such a feature.
Last edited by Islansoul; 08/11/1607:56 AM.
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
I supported your request in your other thread. I think there is one more necessary change, which I have written about, and that is being able to select half or double-time in RealDrums like you can in RealTracks.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
being able to select half or double-time in RealDrums.
THIS!!
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))) Now, as far as 2/2 or cut time goes, and I know I'm beating the ol' horse to death, there is no recognition for that at all. For me, being able to write a song in cut it is a must for me. I have a ton of songs I would like to create but because they are in 2/2, I can't write them. No, I don't want a Ev16 or Sw16, or a fast 4/4, I want cut time
What is an example of a well known piece of music that you want to enter in 2/2.
2/2 or cut time or alla breve is a lot of fun to explain. The following is what I think I know.
Like almost everyone else, I count off a cut-time song by saying 1,2 1,2 but it also could be 1,3 1,3 to correspond to how it's written. This is because the notation appears the same as if it's in 4/4. The only difference is how you "feel" the strongest beats, or in other words when you tap your foot. You would not tap four beats per bar in cut time, only two, but do it on the 4/4 beats of 1 and 3.
Many fakebook charts of Brazilian sambas are written in cut time, with the tempo marking of a half-note equals somewhere around 100 bpm, like my Jobim example above. This makes sense because of the two-feel and the normally fast tempo. The Bossa nova, derived from samba, is counted in 4/4 but the bass (or bass string of the guitar) will play straight half notes. At least, that's the way I learned it, and my drummers all understand me OK.
I do have to admit, other fakebooks may write the same song in 2/4 or 4/4.
I would have preferred to see the BIAB styles for samba made for tempos of around half-note = 95 or 100, instead of quarter-note = 190. I assume this would be a massive rewrite, so if you could, please add the ability of the RealDrums to accept half-time or double-time in the picker dialog, in the same way we can do with RealTracks. This would give me the flexibility to write sambas in BIAB at tempos around 100.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
>> I would have preferred to see the BIAB styles for samba made for tempos of around half-note = 95 or 100, instead of quarter-note = 190.
Hi Matt,
Yes, it would be good if had a cut-time version of a Samba. As you know, in Band-in-a-Box, we use "16" to indicate a cut-time style and "8" to indicate a normal (non cut time style).
We don't have any cut-time samba styles, but we have a bunch of cut-time MIDI samba styles. I got to the list by filtering the stylepicker by Ev16 and typing in samba as a filter.
Matt, I agree with you 100%. With my situation I'm using the chord progrssions from calypso and soca songs whre the use of syncopation is heavly used. It's not ike the use of cut time is to replace the fast four or making easier to understand, the cut is ment to used as cut time. Here is an example of a soca tune wirtten in cut time. Please pay close attention to how the melody plays and notice when the notes come in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4enbTqPPU
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
Peter, yes, I have always watched those 8 and 16 entries carefully. Thanks, that's a great MIDI list. If I understand correctly, if you could add the double-time option to RealDrums, we would be able to use corresponding RealTracks to simulate cut time.
Islansoul, I do hear this song clearly in cut time. But is there a chart that shows it?
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
>>> If I understand correctly, if you could add the double-time option to RealDrums, we would be able to use corresponding RealTracks to simulate cut time.
Yes, but you can already use an existing 16th note cut-time samba style like LaPopJazzSambaEv16
>> Here is an example of a soca tune wirtten in cut time. Please pay close attention to how the melody plays and notice when the notes come in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4enbTqPPU
So I am playing close attention, and please educate me on what about these styles is not meeting your defintion of cut-time. The sound I'm hearing from these styles is very similar to youtube demo
>> And is it possible to add half/double time to RealDrums?
Yes, possible and planned.
btw, we get the reverse request in bluegrass. We do the bluegrass styles as cut-time (Ev16, tempo 140), but the players want to see it in Ev8 (tempo 280). So we made half-time version of some bluegrass styles (there's no drums, so no issue there)
I listened to LaPopJazzSambaEv16. It definitely works at a tempo of 100, using the piano and bass samba 190 tracks at double-time.
I could not find another such drum track with the filter. My next suggestion would be to get Danny Gottlieb to record a jazz samba track at tempo quarter=100 that does not have as heavy shots on beat two and three-and as the LAPopJazzSamba drums. More like straight eighths. ps I've worked with Danny, and his cymbal playing is the best I ever heard.
Yes, I remember those reverse bluegrass requests. After studying the problem from the other side, I understand them better now. Thank you for all your efforts to accommodate us.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Yes. To be clear, that's notated in 4/4 (not 2/2) and it is the same notation that you would get from Band-in-a-Box, which calls cut-time Ev16. I only mention that because the original poster said this...
"I have a ton of songs I would like to create but because they are in 2/2, I can't write them"
Anyway, the solution for the original poster is to pick from any of the 1,300 cut time ev16 styles, and write the music in 4/4 as is the convention.
>> Yes, you could say this song is notated in 4/4 as long as you count it at a tempo of 200 bpm. Just don't try to tap your foot in 4 at that speed.
Yes, you're right. I would enter that song in at tempo=200, and choose the existing Samba ev8 190 style. The notation and playback would work, and as you mentioned, musicians would be tapping foot at 100. I expect the same issue happens when playing fast jazz swing Sw8 (Donna lee, tempo 300, tap foot at 150)
I have often used BIAB to double or halve the length of the song, as appropriate, before exporting the MIDI into a notation program. It's a great feature when an adjustment like this is needed.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
>> Here is an example of a soca tune wirtten in cut time. Please pay close attention to how the melody plays and notice when the notes come in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4enbTqPPU
So I am playing close attention, and please educate me on what about these styles is not meeting your defintion of cut-time. The sound I'm hearing from these styles is very similar to youtube demo
It's not about the style, it's about the feel, and the tempo. I may not always want have fast 4/4 to make it fell like a 2/2 groove, I may want to habe half note equal 85BPM or 100BPM.
Last edited by Islansoul; 11/17/1603:30 AM.
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
Double meter and triple meter is how I break them down.
A 2/2 song can really be a fast 4/4 song. A waltz can be written in 3/4 or even 6/8 or rarely 12/8.
Listening to a song that has a repeating pattern of 7, can you tell without looking at the music if it is in 7/4 or alternating measures of 3/4 and 4/4 or something else?
Listening to a song can you tell if it's in cut time or common time?
Some say bass line, if the bass plays on 1 and 3 it must be cut. But what about those mm=220-330 bop songs with walking bass throughout that are written in cut?
So it must be speed. But then I've played lots of standards with walking bass at moderate tempos written in cut time.
I've played songs that have definite swing feel that could have been written in 12/4 time but were written in 4/4 with even eighth notes that should be played as if they were dotted eighth + eight note triplets.
So I tend to think of each numbered area in the BiaB matrix as a cell.
That cell could be a 4/4 measure, two 2/4 or 2/2 measures, one 2/2 measure depending on the style or even half a 2/4 measure, again depending on the style.
Same goes if you F5 3 beats to the cell. It could be a 3/4 measure, half a 6/8 measure or one beat of a 12/8 measure, again depending on the style.
For 5/4 time I often make a cell of 3 beats for half the measure and the next cell of 2 beats for the rest (or 2 plus 3 depending on how the tune is subdivided).
Thinking of the cells as either a measure or a part of a measure with either 2, 3 or 4 beats in it (determined by F5) and as building blocks instead of complete measures unleashes the creativity to do wonderful things in Band-in-a-Box.
I have no problems with cut time in BiaB, I either find the right style so a cell is one 2/2 measure, or I can F5 it to 2 beats, or I can find a style where a cell is two 2/2 measures. There is an amazing amount of flexibility there.
I've done 36 fake disks from popular music books that have from 100 to over 800 songs in each book. That's a lot of songs. And I've never found a cut time song that cannot be represented in Band-in-a-Box.
It's a very flexible program if you simply treat it that way. And in a way, I know a lot of the reason the way it is today is because of the limited resources of DOS and Windows 3.1 and backwards compatibility, but I find that the flexibility of using cells instead of measures actually lets me do more than if the program supported time signatures instead.
I think two things mentioned will help greatly. Allowing RealDrums to be half or double-time, and allowing the screen display of 12/8. If we're fortunate that will carry over to notation.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
I think the issue here is that the Notation only supports the display of a limited number of time signatures, and not 6/8, 12/8, 2/2 etc.
I never considered BiaB as a full fledged notation editor, but simply as the world's best auto-accompaniment app with a notation window for convenience.
I feel that if you need good notation, use a dedicated notation app. I have an old copy of Encore that serves my minimal needs (head charts). It will do multiple repeats/endings, codas, and a number of notation symbols.
Double meter and triple meter is how I break them down.
A 2/2 song can really be a fast 4/4 song. A waltz can be written in 3/4 or even 6/8 or rarely 12/8.
Listening to a song that has a repeating pattern of 7, can you tell without looking at the music if it is in 7/4 or alternating measures of 3/4 and 4/4 or something else?
Listening to a song can you tell if it's in cut time or common time?
Some say bass line, if the bass plays on 1 and 3 it must be cut. But what about those mm=220-330 bop songs with walking bass throughout that are written in cut?
So it must be speed. But then I've played lots of standards with walking bass at moderate tempos written in cut time.
I've played songs that have definite swing feel that could have been written in 12/4 time but were written in 4/4 with even eighth notes that should be played as if they were dotted eighth + eight note triplets.
So I tend to think of each numbered area in the BiaB matrix as a cell.
That cell could be a 4/4 measure, two 2/4 or 2/2 measures, one 2/2 measure depending on the style or even half a 2/4 measure, again depending on the style.
Same goes if you F5 3 beats to the cell. It could be a 3/4 measure, half a 6/8 measure or one beat of a 12/8 measure, again depending on the style.
For 5/4 time I often make a cell of 3 beats for half the measure and the next cell of 2 beats for the rest (or 2 plus 3 depending on how the tune is subdivided).
Thinking of the cells as either a measure or a part of a measure with either 2, 3 or 4 beats in it (determined by F5) and as building blocks instead of complete measures unleashes the creativity to do wonderful things in Band-in-a-Box.
I have no problems with cut time in BiaB, I either find the right style so a cell is one 2/2 measure, or I can F5 it to 2 beats, or I can find a style where a cell is two 2/2 measures. There is an amazing amount of flexibility there.
I've done 36 fake disks from popular music books that have from 100 to over 800 songs in each book. That's a lot of songs. And I've never found a cut time song that cannot be represented in Band-in-a-Box.
It's a very flexible program if you simply treat it that way. And in a way, I know a lot of the reason the way it is today is because of the limited resources of DOS and Windows 3.1 and backwards compatibility, but I find that the flexibility of using cells instead of measures actually lets me do more than if the program supported time signatures instead.
Insights and incites by Notes
Again, I have some songs written where I need cut time because the sheet music is written in cut time, not 4/4. I mainly get ny chords from leadsheets because I like knowing where the chord is placed in the song, and I play the melody,
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
)) Again, I have some songs written where I need cut time because the sheet music is written in cut time, not 4/4. I mainly get ny chords from leadsheets because I like knowing where the chord is placed in the song, and I play the melody,
Does yours look like that? Because if it does, what I see is something that is notated as fast 8th notes for melody and chords. Tempo=180 for quarter note. No different than if it was a fast bossa or a fast swing tune. So you would choose a Samba 180 tempo style and every thing would play and notate exactly as you want it. I get that you would be tapping your foot twice per bar, but since you want the music to be written like it was played like fast 4/4 I cannot see what the issue is. To me the style that would perfectly in BiaB is the Ev 180 samba style, because the notation matches.
If we started playing that song that Matt posted at successively slower tempos. And people were tapping their foot on half notes at first. And we kept slowing down, there would come a time where people start tapping their foot on quarter notes, when that happens, would someone say "stop, I can't read the music any more. Could you please give me a new leadsheet, written identically, but without the halfnote=80 marking at the top?"
Perhaps if you post a link to what you're referring to with these cut time songs that don't match either a ev16 tempo of 90 samba style, or a ev8 180 tempo samba style, I could understand this. Here's an sample of one of our tempo =180 samba styles, notated as desired in 8ths notes, like Matts example. http://64.40.109.32/audio/rt94/_BNGS190_Render.m4a
This really does seem to come down to the sound you get versus the notation you see. Certainly swing (tripletized) 4/4 can sound exactly like 12/8, but the notation can get messy (technically, in 4/4, you need to put a triplet bracket over every group of 3 8th notes, whereas in 12/8 you don't). That aids in readability. Similarly for 6/8.
And if you need to to 6/8 or 12/8 in fast 3/4 time (to allow changing chords at other than the beat divisions), then you have to be able to have drums that don't sound like a race car motor revving high.
So, as Matt pointed out, having the ability to reduce the drum speed would really help out here, it would be great if you could just specify what the notation should look like and display it accordingly. It shouldn't matter what's entered into the chord grid, but if I could hit a check box that says "display this as 6/8 or 9/8 or 12/8", then the rest is just simple math to translate the notation display.
That way, I could notate a 6/8 or 12/8 song that changes chords potentially every 8th note using a "waltz" style in 3/4 at a 180 speed, but have the drums play as if the entire 3/4 bar were a single beat (and would play much slower than 180). But the notation would display depending upon whichever checkbox I selected for the time signature.
Unless I'm missing something here and I hope that made sense.
John
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This really does seem to come down to the sound you get versus the notation you see. Certainly swing (tripletized) 4/4 can sound exactly like 12/8, but the notation can get messy (technically, in 4/4, you need to put a triplet bracket over every group of 3 8th notes, whereas in 12/8 you don't). That aids in readability. Similarly for 6/8<...>
+1
And exactly why old swing songs were written with straight eighth notes but played with a swing feel.
Which is also why I use a separate notation editor when I want to make a chart.
Of course that's me, and we all have different needs and desires.
)) Again, I have some songs written where I need cut time because the sheet music is written in cut time, not 4/4. I mainly get ny chords from leadsheets because I like knowing where the chord is placed in the song, and I play the melody,
Does yours look like that? Because if it does, what I see is something that is notated as fast 8th notes for melody and chords. Tempo=180 for quarter note. No different than if it was a fast bossa or a fast swing tune. So you would choose a Samba 180 tempo style and every thing would play and notate exactly as you want it. I get that you would be tapping your foot twice per bar, but since you want the music to be written like it was played like fast 4/4 I cannot see what the issue is. To me the style that would perfectly in BiaB is the Ev 180 samba style, because the notation matches.
If we started playing that song that Matt posted at successively slower tempos. And people were tapping their foot on half notes at first. And we kept slowing down, there would come a time where people start tapping their foot on quarter notes, when that happens, would someone say "stop, I can't read the music any more. Could you please give me a new leadsheet, written identically, but without the halfnote=80 marking at the top?"
Perhaps if you post a link to what you're referring to with these cut time songs that don't match either a ev16 tempo of 90 samba style, or a ev8 180 tempo samba style, I could understand this. Here's an sample of one of our tempo =180 samba styles, notated as desired in 8ths notes, like Matts example. http://64.40.109.32/audio/rt94/_BNGS190_Render.m4a
Here is a video of a famous steel pan tune that I play.
Last edited by Islansoul; 11/20/1602:41 AM.
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
Matt, you know that song? Anyways, what I really would like is to get a drum beat similar to that song. I already did a versison of it in the "conga" style.
Computer: Macbook Pro, 16 inch 2021 DAWs: Pro Tools, Logic, and Maschine plays drums, percussion, bass, steel pan, keyboard, music producer/engineer
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